The field of the invention is that of dental appliances. Orthodontic devices such as a Quad Helix are known in the art as devices that can be attached to the molars by two bands, and have four active helix springs. These orthodontic devices can correct certain pathologies such as widening the arch of the mouth to make room for crowded teeth, or correcting a posterior cross-bite, where lower teeth are buccal (outer) than upper teeth. However, the inventor has observed that medicine does not adequately take into account the role of the tongue in the occurrence of various pathologies.
The tongue is an assembly of 17 muscles. Because of untimely and unceasing action, some of these muscles develop excessively giving the tongue a significant volume, greater than the volume considered to be “normal,” considering the size of the buccal cavity of the patient in question. The condition is known as macroglossia.
Macroglossia has at its origin poor habits often acquired in childhood at an age at which the child must stop sucking and learn to chew, speak and swallow when its first teeth emerge. This learning of new reflexes, if it is acquired incorrectly, leads to an exaggerated use of certain muscles of the tongue. The tongue builds muscle in a manner that is unbalanced and excessive. The tongue progressively enlarges and because of its volume can disrupt the respiratory tracts, pharynx, hypopharynx, etc. The tongue serves to remodel all the adjoining structures of the buccal cavity such as the palate, nasal fossae, jaw, etc.
Macroglossia can have varied and sometimes serious consequences. For example, it is often the cause of pathological snoring and sleep apnea, which affect many people and are manifest as an obstruction of the respiratory airways with more or less frequent stoppages of respiration, leading among other things to poor oxygenation during sleep. Beyond the consequences in the patient's daily life (disturbing others by snoring and/or presenting with fatigue, somnolence, memory loss, cardiac disorders, etc.), this poor oxygenation can lead, in severe cases, to the patient's death. Sleep apnea appears to be a cause for many cases of sudden infant death.
The resting position of the tongue, even without macroglossia is also very important, The high resting position of the tongue hollows the palate, which correspondingly reduces the volume of the nasal fossae and blocks the pharynx. Consequently, the soft palate height increases. This can lead to reduced respiration through the nose and forced respiration through the mouth, which seems to play a role in allergic rhinitis and even in asthma because dust (pollen, asbestos, etc.) arrives directly in the airways, since the air is not filtered by the nose.
Macroglossia dysfunction and resting position of the tongue are also at the origin of many osseous and dental malformations and deformations such as upper and lower prognathia and labioversion (rabbit teeth, spaces between the teeth, etc.), Down's syndrome hanging tongue, protruding lower jaw, open bite between the upper and lower jaws, narrow and deep palates, and even loosening of the teeth.
The existing techniques for reducing macroglossia are essentially based on surgery. But, the results obtained by these techniques are short-lived and relapses are frequent. Among the causes of these failures is that the necessary reeducation after surgical intervention is difficult to achieve, since the patient continues to perform incorrect movements of the tongue reflexively even after surgery.